…. I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing 1,535 fuel rods.

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor.
This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr.Arnie Gundersen or Dr.Fumiaki Koide.

Please allow me to inform you of an initiative being taken by a former UN official who is endeavoring to have the Nuclear Security Summit take up the crucial problem of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima . He is pursuing the establishment of ”an independent
assessment team " …. “ .

The reason for anxiety is the 1,331 fuel assemblies in SFP4.
Also the fact that Building4 is sinking. Unevenly.
The foundation of Building4 has been broken.
Building4 is leaning.
The thick walls of Building4 have been blown out.
1,331 fuel assemblies are in a pool of water 100' above ground level.
The stainless steel liner of SFP4 may have been crompomised by gamma rays from spent fuel.
The concrete of SFP4 may be crumbling because of gamma rays from spent fuel.
A partially used and very hot fuel load was removed from Reactor4 in November, 2010, and is in SFP4.
TEPCO placed the hot load into adjacent cells in a single rack of SFP4, a very dangerous practice.
There appears to be MOX fuel stored in SFP4, with a high plutonium content.
A pump leak partially drained the water from SFP4 on 3/11/2011.
The zirconium cladding of the fuel assemblies has been corroded by seawater used for emergency cooling.
There were two fires at Unit4 in March, 2011, which damaged some of the fuel assemblies.
The replacement crane for unloading spent fuel from SFP4 will take all of 2013 to finish.
Removal of spent fuel from SFP4 may begin a year from now, and will take one year or longer to complete.
There have been 5 earthquakes of M6 or higher in the past week, and we expect more large earthquakes.
Worried about Unit4? I'd say TEPCO is in panic mode.

It seems to me that the possibility of the Commons Spent Fuel Pool, as carefully documented by several of our esteemed researchers here, going up in flames would be the 'immediate crisis', over the SPF #4.

With probably 8-10x the amount of radioactive material in the SPF #4, most of which may have already gone up into the atmosphere recently, and the certain knowledge that the Japanese are tossing whatever rods they can pull from any source into the ocean, I fail to see why the 'world' would be interested in anything less.

"…the Commons Spent Fuel Pool, as carefully documented by several of our esteemed researchers here". Who are these "several" researches? Based on what I see, Pattie B. is the only one that is strong asserting that the majority of the CSFP Building contents have burned up. And yet, I do not see where she has carefully documented that. Do you? Can you please show me where?

Tepco has lost over 10,000 rods already. There is only a few thousand rods left that have not burned up. They don't give you correct #s…. and don't even talk about the core rods that have gone walk-about. We have gone well past the amount of Plutonium released needed to kill every carbon-based life form on this planet. The shared pool has had 4 fires… with 6500 rods in it… and lost its roof.

You are right about the (former) core fuel, which also has my attention, Pattie.
Sometimes I believe that TEPCO doesn't think they can do anything about the corium from Units1,2,&3.
So they concentrate on getting spent fuel out of SFP4, because that is all they can do.

I know, Pattie, that you have come under fire about your contention that the CSFP has burned. Right now, it seems to be just you that thinks there has been a problem at the common spent fuel pool. I have seen no independent verification of such a fire. There is also no evidence to see in the photos you have provided, either for a fire, loss of roof, or building damage at the CSFP. You keep saying, look here! But I still don't see what you are talking about. I'm not saying you are mistaken. But without some sort of independent evidence… (Ditto RE use of Plutonium fuel, other than MOX, at Fuku, which is not confirmed by any other source than PB.)

In the meantime, I think things are bad enough at Fuku for everybody to be paying attention.

The easiest way to explain it… each level of scaffold-like rigging on the east side has an "X" cross-brace to stabilize it. There was originally 2 levels of such, and now there's only one. The rest of my contention is easy to follow… once you recognize this fact.

"We have gone well past the amount of Plutonium released needed to kill every carbon-based life form on this planet." Pattie B.

If you have anything at all in the way of quantitative proof that the measured amount of plutonium radiation released from Fuku at any point in this drama is able to "kill every…life form on this planet", will you please let us know? Unit1 blew up. Unit3 blew up. Unit4 blew up. Unit4 burned. There may have been other fires since March, 2011, which released Plutonium into the air.

Even cynobacteria is a life form. "Every life firm"? Bet that cockroaches will still be in Tokyo 1,000 years after the last of the human beings have fled the city, or else died off. Pattie, this Fuku Calamity is already bad enough. Can you please dial this back to the tragedy that it already is?

“Dr Paolo Scampa, a widely know EU Physicist, single handedly popularized the easily understood Lethal Doses concept. “Lethal Doses” is a world wide, well understood idea that strips Physics bare and offers a brilliant, understandable explanation for all the physics gobbledygook Intelligence agencies and their respective governments use to disguise the brutal truths of the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster."

"Three thousand billion (3,000,000,000,000) Lethal Doses of Radiation means there are 429 Lethal Doses chasing each and every one of us on the planet, to put it in a nutshell. This is up from about 70 Billion Lethal Doses March 23, 2011. It is getting worse everyday without any intervention by the US and the other nuclear powers….”

"Note that the lethality of radioactive reactor cores goes up the first 250,000 years they are out of the reactor – not down."

Three, possibly four cores completely melted into the ground, contaminating both air and water, and burning out of control for almost two years. The entire site is collapsing, over 30" in some places. The buildings and Spent Fuel Pools will not stand, and when they fall they will catch fire and burn for decades.

There is no more 'low-level' radiation. We are now living in a 'medium-level' radiation world, with every man, woman and child in the Northern Hemisphere having substantial amounts of aerosolized plutonium and uranium in their lungs. The average estimate of the experts (that aren't paid by the nuclear industry) is we all have about five years left.

The data is all correct, the latest death rates are accurately reflective – time to work your bucket lists, boys, and hedge accordingly.

Has this ever happened before?It seems as there has been a cycle of self destruction that we are unable to overcome.Do we go from world to world doing this suicidal act over and over again.Is the human race making the same errors over and over again? In other words is this cycle endless….We all knew that the atomic energy was playing with fire.Do we get another chance somewhere else than earth or is it finally over?

Great questions, WNTF.
My philosophy is the following, (lessons learned over a lifetime of human being):

Human beings (probably like most young civilizations throughout the universe)
are better at building new technologies,
than they are at surviving the technologies they build.

Human beings work hard,
to earn the money,
to buy the toys,
that kill them.

Human beings are just a little too lazy to be great at anything;
though some of them are sometimes good at some things.

The positive feelings human beings get from doing meditation
are not quite enough to inspire them to do meditation.

Good and bad are constantly at war inside human beings;
so far, the good is a wee bit ahead.

The Law of Entropy means that most of the effort human beings expend to build things,
serves only to depleat natural resources,
pollute the air and water,
and fill up dumps.

The best use of a human being's time is to find a comfortable beach chair,
in front of a good outdoor beach bar,
in a warm, sunny climate,
and to sit enjoying the company of friends,
with a cold rum drink in our hand.

"I know, Pattie, that you have come under fire about your contention that the CSFP has burned. Right now, it seems to be just you that thinks there has been a problem at the common spent fuel pool. I have seen no independent verification of such a fire. There is also no evidence to see in the photos you have provided, either for a fire, loss of roof, or building damage at the CSFP. You keep saying, look here! But I still don't see what you are talking about. I'm not saying you are mistaken. But without some sort of independent evidence… (Ditto RE use of Plutonium fuel, other than MOX, at Fuku, which is not confirmed by any other source than PB.)"

I agree, from what I have read so far. It has been several days over which she has been claiming this. She is making a very serious claim. Why are there not more of you questioning her confusing line of reason?

Okay, fine, yes, you show us that the CSFP Building originally had a 1.5 layer (or 3 half-layer) scaffolding, plus some (blurry in the photo) stuff on top of the roof, which you refer to as the "Exchange Equipment".

But I have yet to see the photo where it is clearly shown that the scaffolding is now gone, indicating, as you say, that there were multiple fires in the building. The second link you provide does not show that, but discusses something entirely unrelated the structure integrity of the CSFP Building.

The live cam only provides a blurry, confusing perspective. It is not clear to me from the Live Cam that "the heat exchangers equipment and the top "Half-"X" is gone". Do any of the other esteemed posters here agree with this assessment of the live cam imagery? Do you have any screen captures or other photos that will better support this very serious contention?

Interestingly, it mirrors the monthly chart recorded at my location in the Southern Hemisphere. Obviously at my location it is at a lot lower levels, but both chart curves are very closely tacking each other.

This is January 2013 month average. It is 52% above the pre Fukushima monthly average. The highest monthly average I have ever recorded here. If I am correct, and it is tracking, then there have been large releases of Radiation at Fukushima in January.

Does it really Pattie? You have been saying a large amount of the CSFP contents have burned up. If that were the case, would we not have seen the immediate effects of extreme toxicity that Arnie G. said (months ago) would occur if the #4 SFP were to collapse?

"Common pool inventory is 6375 spent fuel."
"Unit 5: 946 irradiated (used) and 48 unirradiated new unused assemblies.
Unit 6: 876 irradieated (used) and 64 unirradiated new unused assemblies."
TEPCO, why don't you please at least remove the spent fuel from the CSFP, and SFP5&6, and haul them somewhere else? Or else, put them in dry storage casks on site.
If you keep going the way you are going (doing the very minimum every step of the way), we are going to someday have an earthquake (or "accident" or "leak") drive all of your workers away, and the world will just have to live with–or die from–the radition from Fukushima Diiachi.

The truth always hurts when one tries to deny it. I'm sure if I go to the TEPCO web site concerning this info I will find it but why is it we have never heard about the condition of Reactor 1 and 2 spent fuel pools and speaking of truth, I wonder what shape the cores in Reactors 5 and 6 are truly in and if they did not suffer a partial meltdown as I recall them having trouble with both in the early days of the accident but I guess it really doesn't matter considering the current mess we're in and as they say don't borrow trouble for surely if you go looking you will find it.

the spent rod figure doesn't include the new shipment of MOX that came in, the Plutonium breeder rods… OR!? The rods that were in reactor CORES! With average core-load of 576, and only #1 had a smaller load-out than that.

so… 548 rods were in the core of #4.. and I have a picture of it oozzing… out the north wall of the building after a cask explosion blew-up in that direction… and shoved it there! It was the second cask exploding that deformed the west-side of the building.

Thanks Pattie… Just trying to keep the newbies straight on the differentiation between the term "rods" (the twelve and a half foot narrow tubes chock full of ceramic uranium and plutonium nuggets) and "assemblies" (the much heavier container for 63 rods in the six Fukushima BWR (Boiling Water Reactor). Newer designs of atomic reactor may have several hundred rods per assembly.

Yes indeed… Over a million rods at Fukushima including the fissile fuel in the reactor vessels of Units 1, 2, 3, and maybe even Unit 4 had a hot load in the reactor vessel and they lied about it.

The rods are pretty light individually…5.9 pounds or so from my research. But those slender tubes pack a mean punch when they burn by the many thousands.

If even 25% of the spent rods burned up… It would be like 25 Chernobyl explosions set loose into the atmosphere in less than two years. Bad news for the Northern Hemisphere…absolute mayhem to ensue for the people remaining anywhere in Japan. No place is safe within 1,000 miles from the epicenter. The wind does not always blow towards America.

Sickputer, you are an intelligent poster here. Yet, you do not question Pattie B.'s confusing contention about the majority of the CSFP Building burning up. Where has Pattie B. clearly laid out the case, with clear photos, that it has burned? From what I can tell, you are not disputing it, but seem to be ignoring it? Please comment.

I don't have any rock solid facts available to substantiate whether the CSFP (Common Spent Fuel Pond) burned away over 700,000 zirconium-clad rods or whether they survived. We only have Tepco's word that the CSFP has been recently used in late 2013 to the summer of 2014 as a respository for the removals of rods at Unit 4. Frankly even that assertion by Tepco (Unit 4 rods moved by their special water filled device to the CSFP is not verifiable.

Tepco and the Diet/Ministry officials are both amazingly good at keeping secrets and also proven liars.

Perhaps the CSFP did burn up the first year after the earthquake. Maybe they bulldozed it into the lagoon to prevent massive fires. But if either of those events happened (burned up or bulldozed) then I think nobody would have been taking tours at Daiichi, including Caroline Kennedy. Unless the tour visits were all faked to Daini. But I seriously doubt they could pull off such a bold false flag strategy as that.

Hopefully, the CSFP (being ground level and not subject to a verifiable explosion like the Unit 1-4 buildings) survived fatal damage and was reinforced and kept cool (perhaps one of their few "successes" if we can even call it that.

The ice wall project is going to be a $300 million exercise in futility though… They just can't control the massive water fooding exposed atomic fuel.

This is such rubbish. No good solution for speeding up removal of the rods? They don't know that.
Japan have refused to accept international help, and have handled the situation like retards.
If they allowed international experts to evaluate the situation, it's very likely a solution could be found, and with financial help from the international society, resources wouldn't be a problem.
By not accepting international help to solve this situation, Japan have the whole world hanging on by the last fingernail. Tomorrow the quake that end things can strike, and the idiots intent to drag this out for 40 years? There is no way we can accept this. It's a long time ago this stopped being a Japanese problem.
What we need to do is to demonstrate in front of every japanese embassy in the world, and show them that enough is enough.
The fate of the world is not a japanese decision.
Japan experts? Experts of what? Obviously not common sense.

Well if any of the negative potential of our discussions comes to fruition, this problem ULTIMATELY will become ours to solve. I mean, if the theories on plutonium ETC hold true, Japanese people are goners. I'm not meaning to be cruel or insensitive, I'm saying if the science holds true, they will be poisoned and eventually, not be able to manage or contain the reactors at all. All the while, while we ALL (Japan included) want to LIVE, we are witnessing NOTHING RIGHT integrated into the problem. Two precious years have gone by – radiation must be everywhere now. NOW is the time to have consulted and problem solved with the worlds brightest personnel. It is even on US as well that I say that. If the Japanese were to perish, it will be our task to bear, one way or another.

Whats going on is the same reaction we had to treason on 9/11..
Denial DEnial Denial….Just like THe whitehouse white washing the diseaster in Japan..By the time anyone comes to the Truth. It wont matter anymore.The great nuclear lie?The farce of BP and the Gulf and the aftermath of the Gulf.The lost of the Gulf Stream and weather irregularities all over the world.The coming mini ice age.The pole shift which may happen fairly soon.The deadly Bird flu and population control. Deny Deny Deny…

"Thyroid
Childhood exposure to ionizing radiation is a strong risk factor for thyroid cancer, with risk increasing with greater levels of exposure."

"Melanoma of the Skin
Exposure to ionizing radiation and some chemicals may also increase risk."

"Environmental Cancer Risks
Studies of occupational groups (cohorts) have played an important role in understanding many chemical carcinogens – as well as radiation – because exposures are often higher among workers, who can be followed for long periods of time."

"Leukemia
Exposure to ionizing radiation increases risk of several types of leukemia."

"Radiation exposure as a result of radioactive fallout from atomic weapons testing and nuclear power plant accidents, such as Chernobyl, has also been linked to increased risk of thyroid cancer, especially in children."

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